What's new - May 1998

19 May 1998

Section

Update

Specifications Pages

All classes now have an expanded set of specifications, including all their strength indexes, diplomatic capability, refit schedules and life expectancy. All specifications pages now also contain LCARS buttons to jump to the size comparisons or bring up the rest of the classes on the left hand menu. This lets you jump freely between the specifications and size comparison pages without having to go back to the main menu. The entry for the Galaxy class has been expanded by adding the deck charts from the Encyclopedia (1st edition), which I have assumed as canon.

Size Comparison

Now has LCARS style buttons to pop up the size comparison menu on the left; this is intended to complement the similar layout now used on the specifications pages.

Fleet Strength Indicies

This has recieved a MAJOR workover. Instead of a single grade for each ship, there are now numbers for categories such as beam weapon power, speed, agility, etc. These are all weighted according to a formula which gives an overall strength for each class (given on the fleet strength page). With a few exceptions the overall strengths are the same as the old numbers.

Diplomatic Capabilities

A new addition to the site, accessed either through the main menu or via the entry under each classes specifications. The page gives a seven level grading system for starships with a description of what each grade means. This is all pretty speculative stuff, but I think the numbers are in line with what one would expect - Galaxies and Nebulas capable of holding major conferences, smaller ships with less capability, and ships like Defiant with virtually no diplomatic capability.

16 May 1998

Section

Update

Links

All the Starship specifications pages now contain links to other pages wherever a ship is mentioned. For the moment this only applies to Federation ships, but this is soon to be expanded to all ships on the list.

Housekeeping

The names of most of the HTML files have been changed to make it easier for me to keep track of what refers to what. This means many of your bookmarks will no longer work. Sorry about that, but there should be no further changes along these lines from now on.

10 May 1998

Section

Update

Weaponry

The sub-headings are now LCARS style buttons. Clicking on many of these will take you to an image of the weapon in use.

Power page

A new addition to the site, the power page tries to pull together various estimates of the power output of a Galaxy Class star ships engines and weapons.

Defiant's Specifications

This page now includes a more complete description of the class, including a "what's where" guide to each deck.

9 May 1998

Section

Update

Size Comparison

New additions to the Size comparison page include the Dominion Battlecruiser and Bug Fighter, the Klingon D-7 and Neigh Var classes and the Karemma cargo ship. In addition there is now a whole new size comparison page. This is necessary because the old page used a scale of 1 pixel = 1.33 metres - on that scale the Romulan Warbird was 960 pixels long, too large for an 800 x 600 resolution. The new page displays ships at 1 pixel = 3 metres, which allows the Warbird and Kazon Predator classes to fit comfortably.

In addition, you can now click on each picture to go directly to its specifications page.

Site Guide

The Site guide now contains a re-written disclaimer which lists the official sources more clearly.

New Menu System

The menus have been re-formatted to alter the way they work. Previously, clicking the Starship Specifications button redrew the whole page with the DS9 entry. Now when this button is clicked, only the menu itself is redrawn. You then click on the new menu in the normal way to get to the class you want. This looks a bit strange at first, but it makes navigating your way around the menu system REALLY fast and saves you downloading stuff you probably don't want to see anyway.

In addition, there are now sub-menus similar to that used on the Starships Specifications page for the Site Guide, Size Comparisons and Major Weapons buttons in place of the old table within the page.

Awards

I've picked up a few new awards lately, you can see those by clicking the relevant button on the main menu. Many thanks to those who took the time and trouble to grade my sight and say nice things about it. I'm especially proud to be Lothy's first ever award, and to have recieved a Bronze Award in a "best of the web" category not even related to startrek.